Book review: The Unlikely Disciple

I can’t remember *where* exactly I read about Kevin Roose’s book, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University. I can’t remember when exactly I reserved at the library. But I must have done so – I’m guessing sometime in July, at the peak of my Quiverfull obsession – because a week or so ago I got an email from the Toronto Public Library telling me it was waiting for me at my nearest branch.

On a side note, the fact that Kevin Roose is about eight years younger than I am and has not only written but actually published a book makes me green with envy. At least he doesn’t have his own Wikipedia entry yet. Anyway, his book is an unusual and enjoyable mix of undercover reportage, spiritual exploration, and Bildungsroman.

Kevin Roose, the son of extremely liberal, not-really-religious-but-spiritual Quakers and a student at Brown University, decides to spend a semester undercover at Liberty University, Jerry Falwell’s vanity college. His family (including his two lesbian aunts) are worried about his safety and his sanity, but he perserveres in his project to “bridge the Bible gap” between the world he lives in and the world of intense Protestant Wingnut Christianity he’s stumbled upon. He suffers the predictable culture shock, learns the ropes, makes friends, dates a bit, and comes to a few conclusions: that evangelical Christians are a) not as evil as he thought, really just ordinary people, and b) just as evil as he thought, and he can’t wrap his head around it.

Sounds like a contradiction, I know. But it isn’t.

What Roose stubs his toe on a bit is the much-vaunted banality of evil. His fellow students at Liberty routinely display hypocracy and homophobia, and espouse with varying levels of whole-heartedness the noxious tenets of extreme right-wing American Christianity. But they’re such nice people, such normal people. Even though he knows that the Liberty students are the kinds of people who become anti-abortion zealots, Dominionist home-schooling enthusiasts, and Republican politicians – the kinds of people who cause pain and suffering to people like his aunts Tina and Teresa – he can’t condemn them as monsters, so he can’t really condemn them at all:

All in all, the Liberty students I’ve met are a lot more socially adjusted than I expected. They’re not rabid, frothing fundamentalists who spend their days sewing Hillary Clinton voodoo dolls and penning angry missives to the ACLU. Maybe I’m getting a skewed sample, but the ones I’ve met have been funny, articulate, and decidedly non-crazy….In fact, I suspect a lot of my hallmates at Liberty could fit in perfectly well at a secular college.

Of course, Liberty students depart from the mainstream in fairly obvious ways. Politically, for example, your average secular student is somewhere left of center, whereas you average Dorm 22 resident is somewhere to the right of Alan Keyes.

Yes! THAT IS THE POINT, Kevin. Extremists of all kinds are usually normal people in most respects. It’s the one that they’re not normal in – not part of the rational spectrum – that defines them as extremists. It seems like Roose went to Liberty expecting to meet with a race of aliens, then found himself among humans. Just humans whose values differed radically from his own. So he sort of completely misses the point.

Or perhaps not. A subplot running through the book is Roose’s deteriorating relationship with his 29-year old and extremely – even by Liberty standards – homophobic roommate, Henry:

Whenever he went on a vituperative, unprovoked rant against homosexuals or feminists or Al Sharpton, I was forced to step back and remember: oh, right…this is Liberty University. It was a constant reality check. I felt the same emotions when talking to Henry that I feel whenever I see footage of Dr. Falwell’s 9/11 remarks or when I hear my hallmates condemning non-Christians to hell. It’s my reaction to a certain kind of arrogance I’ve seen among Liberty students – and religious fundamentalists of all ages – who claim to have all the answers.

What Roose writes around but never quite gets at is that all humans are capable of being assholes, of causing pain to others, of being complete insensitive jerks. The trick is to create a social frame in which assholishness is not acceptable. Roose’s fellow students are, intrinsically speaking, probably no better or worse than other college students (Henry, perhaps, is an exception to this rule). But they live in a cultural milieu that encourages and rewards intolerance and bigotry, so most of them end up being intolerant bigots.

In spite of this irritating failure to connect, this is an engaging and entertaining book, even if you keep wanting to yell at the protagonist: “YOU HAVEN’T FIGURED THIS OUT YET???? DON’T YOU HAVE A CRAZY RACIST UNCLE?” It’s written in a vaguely bloggy, confessional style that gets grating at times but keeps the tale firmly on the level of one young man’s personal experience, which is just what it is. As well as marvelling at his fellow students’ worldviews, gleaning bible knowledge, and trying to stop masturbating, Roose shows us the world of Liberty as a superficially benevolent totalitarianism, with Falwell taking the place of Stalin and The Liberty Way (the student handbook that outlines the rules and punishments for infractions, ranging from demerit points or “reprimands” and fines to expulsion) of The Little Red Book.

Kevin Roose spent three months at Liberty University to build a bridge between his America and Jerry Falwell’s. Did he succeed? I don’t know. Seeing Liberty University through his eyes hasn’t changed my opinion of it or those who work and study there – I still think it’s a dangerously poor excuse for a university and those who are associated with it have my sympathy. However, getting that sense of immersion gave me some more perspective on just how easy it is to get sucked into your environment; how hard it is to resist a pervasive and totalitarian culture; how human it is to go along with the stream, especially when going along with the stream makes you better than everyone and guarantees you eternal life.

In short – ha! – a nice counterpoint to Quiverfull, and just as sympathetically written.

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